Educational appliance



`:ateritee:l June 17, 1924).

UNITED STATES HUBERT RIECK, OFIRVINGTON, NEW JERSEY.

EDUCATIONAL APPLIANCE.

Application filed November 2, 1923.` Serial No. 672,242.

To all lwhom t may concern.'

Be it known that I, HUBERT Rincir, a citizen of the United States, and aresident of Irvington, county of EsseX, and State of New Jersey, haveinvented certain new and useful Improvements in Educational Appliances,of which the following is a speciication.

This invention relates to an educational l0 appliance for primarygrades, the device being adapted to present the rudiments of mathematicsin a manner other than abstract, in other words, to give a graphic but`simple demonstration of addition and subtraction, multiplication anddivision. This device is also amusing and interesting as well asinstructive and thereby instills more interest in the childs mind insimple matheinatical problems.

In my appliance I employ a device used in the manner of an abacus butwith guiding or instructing marks used in conjunction with the counterson the wires, on which they slide. The appliance can be made up as anarticle for such use only, but I prefer to make it mounted on a framecontaining a pencil box, the partition between the receptacle forpencils and the chamber for the wires and counters, acting as a bottomcominon to both of them.

The invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawings in whichFigure 1 is a perspective view partly broken away of an articlecomprising a pencil box and my new appliance. Figure 2 is a top view ofthe device shown in Figure 1 with the cover removed. Figure 3 is asection taken on ay plane indicated by the line 3--3 in Figure 2. Figure4 is a partial section taken on line 4 4 in Figure 2.

The device comprises a box-like frame consisting of the sides 10 and theends 11 and has a partition 12 which forms a bottom for the chamber 13in which are mounted the transverse parallel wires 14. To provide acheap construction, I mount the wires by forcing their ends in narrowslits or sawcuts 15 in strips 16'glued or otherwise fastened against thesides 10. On each wire is a counter 17 which slides freely on its wire.

Suitably disposed on the upper face of the bottom 12 are markers 18which markers can be printed on the upper face of said bottom or can beindicated by recesses as shown in the drawing. These markers arepreferably grouped to indicate various values y'and I show in Figure 2,the groups that indicate increasing values showing one at a, two at Z2,three at 0, four at d and live at e.

`With this arrangement I prefer to arrange the wires and their countersin two groups of ten divided by a transverse partition 19.

In addition, I arrange markers as at 20 to include the total number ofcounters. Iith this arrangement, a pupil can be taught to countsuccessively from one to ten in a physical way, having an opticaldemonstration of the increasing values as the ymarkers are covered ordecreasing values as they are uncovered, to avoid the diiliculty of anabstract of theoretical explanation.

The use of the counters with the markers will be evident particularly toone trained in education. A suitable lid 21 can be arranged to cover thedevice when it is not in use. I prefer to place the partition 12approximately central in thefraine so that the receptacle 22 is formedbeneath it, the partition thus forming a bottom common to both October,1923.

HUBERT RIECK.

